Category: Travel

Zooks Visits Tartu. (1)

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

As my friends know, I love travelling although I normally don’t travel the city or country that I live (since I always think “I can go whenever I want because I live here”). However, this time I couldn’t go anywhere I wanted to go to, so I visited my friend in Tartu! This was my first visit to Tartu in these three years since I came to Estonia.

I took a two-week long annual leave before my work calendar year ended, and spent the first two days of the leave for travelling around in Tartu. Therefore this time the article is about my trip to Tartu. (There will be separately two articles.)

Table of Contents
1) To Tartu by train
2) Walking around in the old town in Tartu
3) KGB museum in Tartu
4) Lunch in Tartu
5) AHHAA Science Centre in Tartu
6) Dinner in Tartu

1) To Tartu by train

At that time I had a routine to wake up just one or half an hour before starting working even though it was summer. My train to Tartu was leaving at 8.10 in the morning. I woke up at 6.30 in the morning for the first time in a while.

I took a trolley at around seven, heading to the Tallinn station (Balti jaam). In addition to waking up early, I had a breakfast for the first in ages too. I had it before the train was about to leave. After that a lady came to me to check the ticket. 

I bought the ticket online beforehand, so I simply showed the QR code to her. If not in your case, you could buy one at the ticket office or from the ticket checker. According to the website, it’s cheaper to buy the ticket online.

There are also buses from Tallinn to Tartu, but at that time the bus ticket was a bit more expensive, so I chose the train. Besides perhaps it was because of the early morning on Saturday, the seats were quite empty.

There was no trouble on the way to Tartu. After spending two hours on the train, I arrived in Tartu.

The train station in Tartu was a proper (?) train platform unlike Balti jaam in Tallinn. 


2) Walking around in the old town in Tartu

My friend and I met at the Tartu station, and we straight headed to the old town. It takes 15 to 20 minutes by walk from the station to the old town in Tartu. Also it is enjoyable to walk there because you can see “Tartu’s banksy’s” pictures here and there.

Although I had many places that I wanted to go in Tartu, I couldn’t decide which one  to go first, so we firstly went to the botanical. When hearing “botanical garden”, you may imagine colourful and a huge variety of flours and plants. (At least I imagined like that.) However, when we went there. It was just all green.

But the botanical garden is quite big, so we walked around, talking. Then we headed to Tartu Dome Church. While Tartu is a small city, the dome was pretty big. It was an exercise to go up there since I was used to the flat city of Tallinn and the dome was on the hill.


3) KGB museum in Tartu

Next we went to the KGB museum. Of course Tallinn also has a KGB museum, but I personally have never been there though I have lived in Tallinn for three years. I had been to only the one in Lithuania, Vilnius. It was quite realistic.

The KGB museum in Tartu is a bit far from the old town and really small, being located in the place that is difficult to find. The address of the KGB museum is Riia street but the museum itself is not faced to the road but faced Papleri street that makes an intersection.

There is a small door on the street and another door that goes to downstairs. It was the KGB cell so it was literally narrow. On the downstairs there is a ticket office, and the ticket for an adult cost 5 euro on the one hand, it cost 2 euro or something for a student on the other hand.

The museum is divided into two parts; the permanent exhibition and the temporary one. We went to the temporary exhibition first. At that time the theme of the exhibition was helmets, where we could have worn a real one (though we didn’t try).

After that, we went to the permanent exhibition.

I omit what we saw because I don’t want to ruin your joy (?), but my comment is that it was a really creepy place.

On the contrary, I recommend there to those who want to know the background history during the Soviet era and general tourists.


4) Lunch in Tartu

After enjoying (?) exhibition at the KGB museum, we went to a German restaurant. 

It’s called Restaurant München.

It looked like a tiny restaurant that was half underground, but the inside was actually spacious. I remembered the German cuisine that I had in Germany last autumn while looking for the places to eat on the map. 

What I had is Schnitzel with onions and sauerkraut.

It was small but it was good. It cost around 8 euro.

We also ordered beer. The dark beer on the right is what I had, which was a small size. The left one is what my friend ordered, which was a medium size but looks huge.

Normally I go to cheaper places to eat, so I thought it cost more in Tartu to eat at a restaurant than in Tallinn, but the potion is big, so it wasn’t that expensive. Since Tartu doesn’t seem to have anything local in terms of food, I recommend you to go to Restaurant München if you have no idea where to eat in Tartu. (Besides it’s in the old town.)


5) AHHAA Science Centre in Tartu

After having lunch, we went to my friend’s place and discussed where to go next. I wanted to go to AHHAA Science Centre, but it costs 13 euro for an adult so I gave up. AHHAA Science Centre has a 360-degree planetarium, which  costs additional fee.

I wanted to go to the upside down house called Tagurpidi Maja, but it didn’t seem that my friend was not interested and she was rather interested in the 360-degree planetarium at AHHAA Science Centre. Eventually we figured out that it seemed to be possible to visit only the planetarium, so we decided to go there.

It didn’t seem that the planetarium had a student price, and it cost five euro for an adult. There was no English description either, and show was in Estonian, Russian or Latvian depending on the timetable. 

The receptionist at AHHAA Science Centre told us to wait for an hour, so we just kept talking to spend time.

We went to the reception again 15 minutes before the show, and another staff member took us to the planetarium. After spending some time again there, we could enter the planetarium. There were three-row seats, but I perhaps recommend to choose the first row because you may feel more 360 degree there.

Before the show the staff alarmed, but it was only in Estonian. It seemed that it was not permitted to eat but drinking water was fine. The most important point before the show was to close the eyes if getting nauseous while watching the show since the resolution is too high. I might have been used to such things at Universal Studios in Japan so I was fine indeed, but my friend seemed to get nauseous at some points.


6) Dinner in Tartu

After the planetarium, it was already before eight in the evening or something, so we just headed to a restaurant.

We went to an Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita, which is also in the old town.

It kind of took time to make a decision as there were many types of pizzas! And again, I thought it was a bit expensive, but the pizza was huge. (I felt that maybe also because I was wearing a pair of high-waist skinny jeans.) If you are an adult and not a small eater, you perhaps can finish the whole pizza.)

At the end of day 1, I stayed at my friend’s place. (In return I gave her a box of Lithuanian chocolate.) That was a long day but with full of joy.

That’s all about my day 1 in Tartu. The next article will be about day 2!

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Requests Norwegian Air Shuttle Full Refunds.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

It’s been a while to post something new here, and yet the topic is still related to COVID-19.

Many of my friends know that I do like One Direction, and I was supposed to go to Harry Styles’s concert in May in Oslo. 

Reference

However, he rescheduled the concert due to COVID-19 and the new date is in February in 2021! I had to change or cancel the flights according to this change. This time I was going to fly with Norwegian Air Shuttle.

Reference

Norwegian Air Shuttle is a Norwegian LCC, which one of my American friends hates. Norwegian Air Shuttle had a few options for the passengers due to COVID-19 at that time: either to request full refund as Norwegian Air Shuttle’s Cash Points or to change the flights.

Reference

As mentioned, the new date of Harry Styles’s concert in Oslo is in February 2021. I had no idea what would happen in this time so I requested Norwegian Air Shuttle CashPoints as full refund of the flight tickets.

Reference

I applied for it in the beginning of April. Since this time the reason was COVID-19, I had to user Norwegian Air Shuttle’s special webpage.








But







Nothing happened for a while.







In two weeks after requesting Norwegian Air Shuttle the refund, I contacted them. They told me to send the CashPoins reward number which is different from the regular Norwegian Air Shuttle account number (membership).

I sent it to them.







But




Nothing happened again for a while.








I had waited for Norwegian Air Shuttle’s reply for another week. Then I contacted them again, who told me to send them the flight reference number as well.













Mate, you didn’t mention such a thing on the website.











I told them the reference number and had waited for one month. Norwegian Air Shuttle finally gave me the CashPoints as the full refund in the beginning of June.








It took two months.







It was the full refund, and yet it was in CashPoints, so I feel that I will have to pay a bit more when booking flights next time in CashPoints. On the other hand, I would say it was still better than nothing.

Last not but least, I personally feel that this sort of loss does not have a huge impact on my wallet or bank account or any financial side because we pay for the flight tickets way before the event would be occurred.

Though I had to cancel the flights, Harry Styles’s decision was wise.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Keeps Contacting Hostelworld Due to COVID-19.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

Around one month ago, I was supposed to go to Louis Tomlinson’s concert and for vacation using the annual leave. However, whole Europe got panicked because of the newly found coronavirus called COVID-19, which led any events postpone, flights and busses that go across the borders cancel and/or require those who planned to travel (abroad) to rebook the transport. 

Besides, there is one more thing you may care about when planning a trip is an accommodation. This time I speak about what previously happened, what the hostels that I booked or Hostelworld did under this circumstance and what I learnt from this experience.


★ What happened previously?

First of all, I’m gonna give an account about the previous events. You may also read what happened here, where I mentioned that I got everything re-ready for Louis Tomlinson’s concert in Stockholm on the weekend, 13th to 15th in March. 

In more detail, after the organiser announced the postponement of the concert, I contacted the hostel that I was supposed to stay at and Air Baltic so I changed the flights, rebooked the hostel (without any additional fee) and have kept the ticket valid for the concert on the changed date.

Therefore, I won’t write anything about those points above. As stated in the article, the problem was the trip in Europe that I was supposed to go on by using my annual leave. Firstly the bus-reservation company announced that the buses were cancelled so I got the refund of my tickets. Then I rebooked the flights on Ryanair and easyJet though I had to pay for some as the tickets in summer were more expensive. However, it wasn’t that easy to deal with the accommodations that I was supposed to stay at.


★ All the reservations for accommodations were done via Hostelworld

I contacted all the hostels that I booked but everyone said:

You have booked a bed via Hostelworld. Please contact them first.

Sorry. (?)

Then I messaged Hostelworld but I’d got no replies from them for a while. Eventually I sent them messages three times and finally got a reply after the week that I was supposed to take as my annual leave. Since the reason was COVID-19 this time, they refunded to me as “Credits” on my Hostelworld account.

I had four reservations made on Hostelworld at that time, but I got the refund of all of them. Hostelworld’s Credits are something like money that I can use only when making reservations on Hostelworld, which had some prerequisites.

It may sound like they had a restriction or something, but it’s not like that. Nothing better than actual money, and yet I quite appreciate their decision. 


★ What did I learn? 

I kind of like Hostelworld as I can view where I stayed like a collection, I’m used to the platform, and there’s no problem in a regular occasion. For these reasons I want to continue using Hostelworld personally but one hostel or two told me:

If you book a bed directly on our website next time, it’ll be easier.

The biggest reason why I use Hostelworld quite often  in addition to the items above is because I easily can find a lot of cheap hostels. In my opinion it sounds like it would cost more given that I book a bed not via Hostelworld but directly on their website… (And I super like viewing my collection.)

Perhaps from the next time I might use Hostelworld, seeing the prices on the hostel’s website at the same time. Maybe.

By the way, the hostel in Zagreb that I booked charged me around 10€ though I didn’t cancel. I emailed them three times but still no reply. (I haven’t given up so I’m still dealing with it.)

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Changes Flight on easyJet: How to.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

You may remember that I had to change the date to ride on Flixbus and flights on Ryanair because COVID-19 has made all the events such as a concert and trips in March postponed. There is the third transport that I was supposed to use for my planned trips: easyJet, a British LCC.

Before Estonia got panicked owing to COVID-19, I roughly checked if I could change the flight on easyJet and figured out that it seemed possible to do without any change fee unlike Ryanair at that time. However, I hadn’t got any email about it so I wasn’t sure and didn’t do anything. (I was so suspicious.)

Then, on Friday the 13th when Estonia got panicked, I checked easyJet’s website again and found the announcement regarding flights due to COVID-19. To summarise what they said, any passengers had rights to change their flights without any change fee and need to pay the difference in case the postponed date tickets are more expensive, which is applicable up to two hours before the flights.









Sounds so good.






So this time I’m talking about how to change the flights on easyJet. There was nothing that big so the article is way shorter than the ones as for Flixbus or Ryanair.


1) You know, access it

First of all access easyJet’s website and log in there. You cannot proceed anything without logging in. After logging in, you will see the information regarding the flight/s that you have booked so click “Change flight” below the information.


2) Search alternative flight/s

Next, search the alternative flight. This UI is not really good because you need to select the date not from the calendar form but from the pulldown form. Anyways, once you selected the destination and date of the alternative flight, click ”SEARCH NEW FLIGHTS” and go next.


3) Pay for the difference

It would be amazing if you found the best flight for you at once but as repeated in the previous articles I was supposed to travel in multiple countries so I had to consider the overall and total fees and the available flight dates on both Ryanair and easyJet. This means I had to go back to the previous page on easyJet several times as the UI on easyJet was really bad!

On easyJet’s website you have to change the date by repeating going back to the previous page. That was quite irritating. Besides, you finally can see the price by clicking “CONTINUE” in this step. Ryanair is the better for sure in terms of UI. (Yeah it’s my occupational side effect in a sense.)


4) Finish the change process

After confirming the alternative flights and getting ready to pay, you can pay by card like always. The image below is after the payment.

Considering the unnecessity of the help (centre), easyJet was easier to use but taking into account the flight change, Ryanair was more user-friendly.

Anyways the route for my trip in August was almost determined. All I will have to do is to rebook the buses and and accommodations!

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Contacts, Changes Bookings on Ryanair: How to.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

Previously I talked about how to change the booking on Flixbus. As mentioned there, I planed to ride on Flixbus day after the day that I was supposed to attend the concert in Stockholm, Sweden from the nearest bus stop of the hostel to Stockholm Arlanda airport.

However, COVID-19 made the concert postponed, accordingly to which I had to change the flights and the booking dates of the hostel. The last necessary change was the booking on Flixbus. Then I changed the date of the ride on Flixbus. Strictly speaking, as also described in the article, they treated my ticket as cancellation and then gave me a voucher code valid for one year.

It’ll be implemented in August so I still haven’t “rebook” the ride on Flixbus as of today (22/March) but anyways everything was alright because I could change the rest of the necessary steps. Moreover, when COVID-19 made whole Europe in panic, I summarised my personal news in another article, I said that I was supposed to travel in some countries after travelling Sweden.

Thus, there have been subsequent cancellations and changes of flights and bookings of accommodations since COVID-19 affected all the plans in March. This time I summarise how to ask for help and change flights on Ryanair that I was supposed to use after travelling in Sweden.

Table of Contents
★ Ryanair’s help centre
1) Search anyways
2) Contact them!
3) “Let’s chat”
4) Need a human support?
5) Be patient

★ How to change the flights on Ryanair
1) Open My Bookings
2) Choose flight to change from “Upcoming trips”
3) Change the booking
4) Change the itinerary itself
5) Choose the flight/s
6) Select the date (destination)
7) Pay the difference


★ Ryanair’s help centre

Ryanair’s help centre has a chat support, which is open at 6am (GMT) but I couldn’t connect any agents for a while even though I accessed the website at 6am (8am in Estonia), which is probably because of every government’s announcement and subsequent cancellations of flights by COVID-19.

For the reason above, I tried to access Ryanair’s help centre on Friday afternoon, 13th of March again. Ryanair’s help centre is similar to Flixbus, which makes the customers to solve the problems by themselves first but perhaps many of you would miss or lose yourself on Ryanair’s website.


1) Search anyways

As mentioned you might miss Ryanair’s help centre so let’s go to the website anyways. If you don’t go, nothing will start. (Obviously.)


2) Contact them!

Once you accessed Ryanair’s website, scroll down the screen. Then you’ll see “Contact us” in really teeny-tiny letters so click it.


3) “Let’s chat”

After clicking it, you will see the button “Chat Now” in the section of “Let’s chat” so click it. If you read the description properly, you will understand; it does not mean that you will be connected with the agents immediately after “starting” the chat.

The chat bot will answer you so let’s try if it can solve your problem by entering some word or asking questions. Given that chat bot is meaningless even after entering the word or nothing happens, type “Help”.


4) Need a human support?

Once you entered “Help” in Ryanair’s chat bot, it shows multiple options for you so try and find the most suitable one for your need. If you couldn’t find any help there, scroll down the chat and select ”I Need To Speak with Support”.


5) Be patient

After selecting it, you will be required to enter some necessary information and then added to the support “queue”. In comparison to Flixbus, you don’t know how many people are queueing in front of you on Ryanair. Therefore, I couldn’t make any progress even though I spent the whole morning and didn’t know the situation at all.

However, I successfully could get connected with some agent in the afternoon so I asked them, who said that they charge all the passengers in case we wanted to cancel or change the flights as usual because there was no change in terms of the flights to and from Germany as of the afternoon on the 13th.

On the other hand, British Airways already announced that they cancelled or would do something for the flights to and from Germany as of then but Ryanair cancelled flights a few countries including Italy.

(By the way you can access Ryanair’s help centre mentioned above from here.)

Next day, Saturday, on the 14th of March, I got an email from Ryanair, where they would not charge the passengers in March for changing the flights without any changing fee. In case the alternative tickets that the passengers would choose are more expensive the ones that they had, they needed to pay for the differences.

Therefore, the next section is about how to change the flights on Ryanair.


★ How to change the flights on Ryanair

Once you’ve decided to change the flights on Ryanair, go to Ryanair’s website and log in so as to change the flights. (On Ryanair’s website you also may choose Facebook or Google to log in.)


1) Open My Bookings

After logging in, the screen already should be My Bookings, which is correct. It’s like the image above and if it shows your flights, everything is alright.


2) Choose flight to change from “Upcoming trips”

On the top of My Bookings you see your flights as “Upcoming flights”. If you click the flight that you want to change, you will go next.

Once you logged in, you also can easily ask the chat bot for help.


3) Change the booking

I selected the flight from Tallinn to Berlin here because I had three flights and two trips in total. To change your flight booking, click “Manage Booking” on the top right corner of the screen.


4) Change the itinerary itself

If you click “Manage Booking”, you will see the options that you can make changes with so select “Change your flight”.


5) Choose the flight/s

I bought a round trip ticket for Tallinn and Berlin so here it shows two tick boxes for each so that I could make changes for each flight. I ticked both boxes since I wanted to have all the flights in March in summer but in case you want to change one of the flights of the round trip, you can tick just one of them. After that, click “Select” and go next.


6) Select the date (destination)

Furthermore, you may change both or either flight date and/or destination but as for the destination I cannot 100% guarantee if you can change because I changed only the flight dates. As mentioned earlier, since I had multiple flights for one trip on another airline (easyJet) too so I changed the flights between Tallinn and Berlin, taking into account the prices of another flight on Ryanair or on easyJet that I was also supposed to use.


7) Pay the difference

Once you decided the flights, the last thing you need to do is pay. Usually Ryanair charges you some as a change fee but I paid for the difference between the prices of the new flights and the flights that I was supposed to take without any change fee as said due to COVID-19.

It’s easy isn’t it?

It’s true that it was actually hard to rebook flights because I had multiples but I did the right thing on the previous night – to wait a bit longer until Ryanair announced something. It’s good to be patient.

Now I’m super looking forward to the trips in summer. Really.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Changes Booking with Flixbus: How to.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

Previously I wrote an article about personal news because of COVID-19 which has made entire Europe in panic and led subsequent cancellation and changes/rebooking of flights and accommodation, postponements of events and an “advice” of remote work, which has happened since the 12th of March.

As mentioned in the article, I was supposed to go to a concert in Stockholm, Sweden on the weekend of the 13th and go to travel by using the annual leave for about one week from the 19th.

Moreover, as also (kind of) described in the article, I decided to summarise how to cancel or change the flight or bus dates because the article got too long.

I, however, wrote how to change the flights with air Baltic that was supposed to be used for the trip to Sweden in the article. (This is because actually it wasn’t like a method so to speak.) This time I summarise how to change the booking with Flixbus, a German transport brand.


1) Access the website

You can’t start anything without accessing Flixbus’s website. However, there is no chatbot or chat functionality to ask agents for help in Flixbus’s website screen.

On Flixbus’s website you are required to search the help by yourself and if you finally can chat with the agent it’s not helpful but the way to find the clues to solve the problems can easily be found. When accessing the website, click “Help” from the bar in the header.


2) Choose the category of the help

As clicking “Help”, you will see the category of the help so choose the right one depending on your need.

Here as an example I chose “Booking”. Then it shows the same questions probably as yours and you will see the relevant articles by scrolling down. 


3) Chat with the help agent

In case you couldn’t find any answers to solve your problem, click “Contact” below the relevant articles. Here finally you are given an opportunity to chat the help agent.


4) Make sure the agent available

After clicking “Contact”, you need to make sure if the help agent is really available before starting the chat. If your screen has the icon in orange, it means there are agents, one of who can handle your problem. On the other hand, if it’s in grey, it means there is no agent available so you cannot go forward no matter how many times you click there.

Besides, it’s probably a lunch time for one hour from 1pm of Central European (German) Time and the icon would be in grey so it may not be wise to try and find the agent during this time from my personal experience.


5) Enter the necessary infomartion

Fill out the items with asterisks (“*”).








Which is every item though.







You can choose the category of the help that you need from the pulldown box of “Category” in the form to fill out so choose the right one. After entering all the items and selecting the category, start the chat with the preparation of the reference (booking) number in case you have already bought Flixbus’s ticket/s. (Flixbus’s ticket reference/booking number starts with the hash “#” and several digits. You can find it on both the confirmation email and the ticket PDF file itself.)


6) Be patient

Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that the chat immediately starts right after you clicked the button. Imagine the post offices in Estonia or probably banks in general. Usually they can’t accept the customers right away. Yep, you need the waiting number. (It’s called reference number technically speaking but it’s confusing here if using it.)

Flixbus’s chat support has a similar system. Once you click the start chat button, you will see the number. As people “in front of” you finish their business, your number gets smaller. I personally recommend you not to go back to the previous page and fill out the form again but to patiently wait. (If you want to do, please do. That’s not my business :P)

Thanks to the chat support of Flixbus, I successfully postponed the date of the ride on Flixbus in Stockholm. Given that you cancel your ride on Flixbus, there will be a cancellation fee but they issued me a voucher valid for one year after treating my ticket as a cancelled one since my case was a change of the date of the ride.

The reason why I said “with the preparation of the reference (booking) number” is because the helping process will be easily and quickly done if you prepared your own booking numbers in advance.

Also it’s easier for the support agents to assist the customers if their preparation is sufficient. Provided that they know the booking number, it’s also less time and/or energy-consuming for them to check the customers’ email addresses and the overall support is done quickly. Therefore it reduces the time that the next customers have to wait for and their negative feelings such as frustration. Just try to pay attention in your daily life.

And that’s all about how to change the ride date with Flixbus!

Aitäh! 🙂